In the wake of the United States’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Israel, I heard yet another Friday sermon on the centrality of Jerusalem and al-Masjid al-Aqsa to Muslims’ religious practice. In fact, every time Israel commits some atrocity towards the Palestinians and Lebanese, such as its 1982 and 2006 invasions of Lebanon, its using its Apartheid Wall to seize more land from Palestinians in the West Bank or its election-cycle timed massacres in Gaza, I hear some sermon like today’s. I’m sure the preacher thinks that he is exhorting Muslims to support the Palestinians, and I don’t criticize that motive. Continue reading →

Meanwhile, Variety celebrates tax-deductible donations to the state of Israel which ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of non-Jews from Palestine, prevents them and their descendants from returning to their homes, implements a military occupation over two million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and practices within the state of Israel discrimination based on religious affiliation.

Friends of the Israeli Occupation Forces is material support for terrorism.

Assuming this review is accurate, it amazes me that Zionist critics of BDS never acknowledge US support for the Zionist movement. So they act like BDS activists convincing a grocery store not to carry Strauss Group hummus is a direct threat to world Jewry and ignore the actual damage that $3 billion annually of military aid to Israel does to Palestinians. Or when BDS activists object to a relationship between a U.S. university and an Israeli university which furthers the Zionist colonization project in Palestine is a “threatening ideas” while the Zionists prevent Palestinian scholars from traveling all the time. The object of BDS in the United States is not 1-state or 2-state: it’s ending our complicity in Zionist war crimes.

I am writing to urge you complete the hiring of Professor Steven Salaita in the position the University of Illinois offered him in the Department of American Indian Studies.

When political appointees override hiring decisions of departments, they should not hide behind terms like “civility.” In the words of one of Professor Salaita’s criticized tweets, if the Board of Trustees doesn’t want Professor Salaita to have a job because of his political views, it should “own it.”

But I hope that the Board of Trustees will see the error of its current path and confirm Dr. Salaita in his position.

Sincerely

This link will populate your e-mail client with all the addressees Professor Robin identified with the subject header “U of Illinois Board of Trustees Should Complete Hiring of Steven Salaita.” You should then write your own letter. If you want to use my letter, use this link and add your name, address and phone number at the end.

There has to be a word which describes phrases which please the ear and are uttered in an air of reverence, implying that they contain some timeless wisdom. Upon examination, however, the phrase is either false or meaningless. Certainly Charles Krauthammer is not the first person to use this rhetorical technique. Here’s a brief listing:

These phrases are very fun and easy to play with. When I was a graduate student, I was a Teaching Assistant for Professor Irving Katz‘s American History after the Civil War class. We assistants were meeting with Professor Katz to discuss grading the students’ exams. I joked, “We can forgive the students for writing poor exams, but we can’t forgive them for forcing us to give them bad grades.” He, may God have mercy on him, was the only one who got the joke.